Autism

Lost In Their Own World



"‘You’re told: ‘"Your child has a severe disease and there’s no cure, about no research going on, and we don’t know how to treat him—goodbye!' It’s incredible in this day and age.’"
Portia Iversen, the mother of an
autistic child, said about her
difficulties finding medical help
(Mestel 2001).


There is a disorder out there that paralyzes a child’s ability to socially interact with others in a competent manner. It is known as Autism. Of course, many people have seen the movie “Rain Man” starring Dustin Hoffman as a highly functioning autistic savant and figure that that’s the only characterization of an autistic person. This is not the case, however. This disorder plagues both the child and parents. It’s a struggle to find or receive help for a disorder that still mystifies many professional medical personnel.

In recent studies, figures range from 1 in 130 to 1 in 500 as to how many children are affected by Autism in the United States (Rimland). So, as you can see, this isn’t a problem that should be just dismissed frivolously. It has been proven that these children can be helped, but it is a difficult road to recovery. Sadly, though, as in “Rain Man”, there are those children who grow up and never overcome it.

Autism’s wide variety of symptoms include six or more of the following symptoms spread across the three areas of social interaction, communication, and behavior: difficulty with relating socially and communicating with others, “[a]bnormal responses to one or a combination of senses”, sustained odd play, uneven gross or fine motor skills, unresponsiveness to verbal stimuli, not very much or no eye contact, insistence on following routines, under or over activity, throwing tantrums for virtually no reason, difficulty with language and speech, word repetitions in speech, inappropriate laughing and giggling, problems relating to others, objects and events in an normal manner (Autism-PDD 1994). There are similar Persuasive Developmental Disorders that have one or more of these symptoms, but are not classified as Autism. They are said to be in the Autism spectrum of disorders. Rhett's Syndrome and Asperger's Disorder are included along the spectrum.

Many social and biological theories have been used to treat these “lost” children and some are more successful than others. Some treatments revolve around George Herbert Mead’s theory of the play stages of development (Tischler 1999). In these treatments, children’s behavior toward normal advancement of play is emphasized. Other treatments range all the way from behavioral modification and hormone treatments to synthetic drugs and manipulation of the cranial bones (Autism-PDD). Behavioral modification treatments are very costly and time-consuming, but have been proven to be the best defense against the disorder. One of the main arguments against this treatment is that the behavior of the autistic child sometimes appears robotic or trained and unnatural (Rimland), but people continue to believe in it because of the high degree of normalness that the afflicted child reaches in most cases. Doses of secretin, a natural hormone produced by the pancreas has proven to have benefits for the autistic child, although there are still many skeptics. Medications that affect behavior are prescribed to some autistic children, but they don’t cure the disorder; they only modify the symptoms to make the child more controllable.

Most people can’t imagine having to go through life in the social darkness that limits normal interaction with others. How difficult it must be to not know how to communicate to people about what you want and don’t want.

Some autistic children are known as geniuses and others would be considered retarded. The different ability levels of these children leads to even more confusion about what causes it and how to treat it.

In conclusion, there are many children who suffer from life-altering affliction that most people are ignorant about. In professional circles, ideas and theories are about as numerous as the hairs on one’s head. The parents and families of autistic children must struggle to find out which treatment will help their child and not hinder him or her in other aspects at the same time. In reality, a cure is far off, but understanding the affliction is a healthy start.




Works Cited

Autism-PDD Resource Network. http://www.autism-pdd.net/checklist.html.
http://www.autism-pdd.net/treaform.html

Mestel, Rosie. “Reaching Out to a Remote World”. Los Angeles Times. 12 Mar.
2001. http://www.latimes.com/health/reports/autism/.

Rimland, Ph.D., Bernard. Autism Research Institute. “Secretin: positive, negative
reports in the ‘top of the first inning’”. http://www.autism.com/ari/editorials/secretin.html.

Rimland, Ph.D., Bernard. Autism Research Institute. “Intensive early behavioral
intervention: a letter of support”. http://www.autism.com/ari/editorials/support.html.

Tischler, Henry L. Introduction to Sociology. 6th ed. Orlando, Florida: The
Harcourt Press, 1999.


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